Cowboys are Forever (13 page)

She’d bought it last year on sale and never worn it, saving it for special occasions. Emerald green, the bodice of stretchy velvet had a high neck, long tight sleeves, and keyhole back. The drop-waist skirt with rows of filmy chiffon flounces over a wide, floating velvet skirt was perfect for dancing, she decided gleefully. Absolutely perfect. Not too formal, not too frou-frou—just right. She said a silent thanks to the impulse that had caused her to dash into a little boutique and buy it when she’d seen it in the window.

She hadn’t taken time to try it on, she remembered now with a flicker of misgiving as she quickly removed the dress from its padded hanger. What if it didn’t fit? It will, she reassured herself confidently. After all, it was stretchy. Stretchy stuff stretched to fit. That was the whole idea.

It didn’t have a zipper so Marielle carefully lowered the dress over her upswept hairdo and proceeded to wiggle into the long tight sleeves and bodice. Something, she realized breathlessly a few minutes later, easier said than done. After several moments of squirming around like a contortionist, she’d only managed to get one arm in a sleeve, and the bodice finally worked down to her waist. Now she stood awkwardly, one arm dangling outside the dress, and began the arduous task of inserting her other arm in the narrow tube of the remaining sleeve.

Whew! At this rate she’d be too tired to dance by the time she got the stupid dress on, she thought, snaking her arm inch by inch into the clingy fabric. At last! Marielle breathed a sigh of relief when her hand finally emerged from the wristband of the tight sleeve. Now all she had to do was pull the waistline down around her hips and … .She froze in horror.

It wouldn’t go any farther! Marielle tugged at the skirt of the dress—yards of chiffon and heavy velvet—to no avail. It wouldn’t budge. She wailed inwardly. The damned thing wouldn’t fit over her hips, and since the skirt wouldn’t stretch like the top, she couldn’t make it fit. Great, just great, she fumed silently. Now what? Nothing to do but take the blasted thing off and wear one of the others, she realized. And quickly, before Trey came to pick her up.

At that moment, as if on cue, she heard a knock at the front door. Oh, Lord! She went to the bedroom door, the skirt bunched around her waist, and opened it a crack.

“Come in,” she called loudly. Another knock at the door more insistent this time. He hadn’t heard her. Well, she’d just have to turn up the volume, she decided. She wouldn’t go to the door like this.

“Come in!” she bellowed. She heard the front door open, then close. Trey’s voice called out, “Marielle? Are you ready?”

“Er, almost,” she told him through the crack in the door. “Just have a seat, Trey. I’ll … uh, I’ll be right out,” she assured him. Closing the door, Marielle whirled toward the closet and began pulling the offending garment up over her head. Her mind was racing, wondering which of the other dresses she should wear. Umph! She grunted softly, tugging at the tight fabric. Getting it on hadn’t been easy. It seemed that getting it off wouldn’t be any easier.

Several moments later, panting with exertion, Marielle writhed and twisted her upper torso in a futile attempt to extricate herself from the dress. She whimpered in frustration and despair. This was like a bad dream. She’d tried to free her arms, first one and then the other, by bending each one at the elbow inside the tight sleeves and inching toward the arm-hole. Now she was pinioned neatly, hands at her shoulders unable to do more than flap her arms and half-empty sleeves uselessly.

She grew claustrophobic and panicky. The ticking of the small bedside clock sounded like Big Ben, reminding her with every passing second that Trey sat in the living room waiting for her. She forced herself to take a deep breath and calm down. She had to quit fighting the dress. It wasn’t working. The more she struggled, the tighter it got. Like one of those Chinese finger traps, she thought, and couldn’t stifle a hysterical giggle. A knock sounded at her bedroom door and she realized, much to her chagrin, that Trey was right outside.

Galvanized into action, she decided to get the small scissors from her sewing kit on the dresser and somehow—considering that her hands were nearly immobilized—snip her way free. With the dress over her head, covering her eyes, she groped her way blindly in the general direction of where she thought the dresser should be, determined to free herself somehow.

Trey had been sitting in Marielle’s living room for fifteen minutes now. He glanced at his watch again. The dance had already started. He didn’t want to be impatient, but what could be taking her so long? She’d been amazingly prompt the other times he’d come to fetch her for a riding or shooting lesson. Well, he told himself with an indulgent smile, women were known to be fussy about their appearance on occasion. She’d be meeting a lot of the townspeople from Wolf Pass for the first time tonight. She probably just wanted to look her best.

Personally, he didn’t see how she could do anything else. Even if she showed up in a dress made of feed sacks, she’d still outshine any other female at the dance. Bandy was right; he acknowledged … Marielle wouldn’t be a wallflower. The men around here would by vying for her attention.

Hell, they’d be standing in line. He frowned, his good mood suddenly dampened by the thought of Marielle surrounded by a bevy of admirers.

Trey didn’t like the pictures that thought conjured in his imagination … Mari on the dance floor, swaying slowly in another man’s arms … Mari looking up at another man with those incredible green eyes … Mari’s wine-red lips parted in a sweet smile for somebody else …

He jumped up suddenly from the couch and prowled restlessly around the small room. His pacing was interrupted by a series of small thumps and other unidentifiable noises coming from the direction of Marielle’s bedroom. He moved quietly toward her door and listened closely, puzzled.

He could hear loud breathing in there, punctuated by soft moans and a strange, slithery sound. He stepped closet to the door, beginning to get concerned.

Trey rapped sharply on the bedroom door. “Mari, are you okay? Is something wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong!” he heard her reply. Her voiced sounded strained and oddly muffled. His brows knit in perplexity.
Hmmm,
he thought.
Curiouser and curiouser.

“Marielle, do you need some help?” he inquired tactfully, remembering that women sometimes experienced technical difficulties with back zippers and other fasteners.

“No!” she shrieked. “No! Don’t come in here! I’ll be out soon, I promise!”

Now he could hear her moving around again on the other side of the door. The floorboards creaked with her steps, which sounded slow and strangely stealthy. Then he heard her sharp cry of pain.

That did it, he decided. Something was not right in there and he was going in whether she liked it or not.

“Marielle,” he shouted, flinging the door wide and bursting into her bedroom, “I’m coming in!”

Trey stopped abruptly in his headlong charge into Marielle’s bedroom, brought up short by the sight that met his astonished eyes. Marielle stumbled backward, away from the bedpost. At least he assumed it was Marielle. He narrowed his eyes, quickly studying the rounded hips, flat stomach, and long, tapering legs underneath the green thing completely covering her top half. Yes, definitely her, he decided. He’d only seen one pair of legs like that in his life. And they belonged to Marielle Stevens.

“Marielle?” he said. “What is that you’re wearing?”

She gave a muffled sob from underneath the fabric that encased her head and upper body. “It’ a dress. And I’m not wearing it,” she told him bitterly. “It’s wearing me. It won’t come off. I … I think it’s grown into me, like some kind of fungus or something.” She wiggled feebly, illustrating her predicament. “See?”

Trey knew that staring at her, under these circumstances especially, didn’t seem the gentlemanly thing to do. But he couldn’t help himself. That little shimmy she’d just done, demonstrating her futile attempts to free herself from the dress, had mesmerized him.

He drank in the sight of her. The parts that he could see, anyway. His groin tightened as he feasted his eyes on her lush beauty. Marielle stood clad in nothing from the waist down except a pair of impossibly sheer, brief panties. Her feminine mound of auburn curls showered clearly thorough the scrap of fabric that barely covered it.

His gaze roved down those incredibly shapely legs that seemed to go on forever … .then back up again to the enticing vee where they joined. He swallowed. It took every ounce of his self-control not to throw her down across that big four-poster bed so temptingly available nearby, tear that wisp of an undergarment away with one sharp yank, and plunge his throbbing manhood into her gorgeous body.

“Trey,” she said plaintively, her voice trembling, “Do you think you could help me out here? I really would like to go to the dance sometime tonight.” She tried to laugh, and he heard the catch in her voice. He shook his head to clear it of lustful thoughts, ashamed of himself for standing there, gawking at her while she needed his help. Trey groaned inwardly, disgusted with himself. What kind of person was he, anyway? Mari was upset, trapped in that dress, and all he could think of was satisfying his desire for her. He stepped toward her and, taking her shoulders through the fabric, turned her gently around so that he could try and free her from her velvet straitjacket.

With her back to him, determined not to let his eyes stay downward and back into forbidden territory, Trey assessed the situation. “What exactly seems to be the problem?” he asked.

“It stuck at my hips,” she said. It won’t go any further and obviously, I can’t—I can’t w-wear it like this.” Trey could tell that Marielle wavered perilously close to tears. He quelled his own impulse to laugh at her plight, perceiving that at this very moment it was no laughing matter to her.

“No,” he agreed seriously, “you certainly can’t.” His hands explored the heavy mass of material bunched around her midriff and found what felt like a metal catch of some kind. “Marielle,” he said, “I think I just solved your problem.” As he spoke, his fingers were busy releasing the hook and eye fastening that held the dress together at the waist. When he did so, the skirt of the dress slithered on down past her hips as designed.

Marielle gave a cry of joy. “Oh my gosh! You mean it was fastened? I didn’t notice the thing. I guess I was in too big a hurry to get dressed.” She laughed. “Now,” she went on, hurriedly pulling open a drawer, “I’ll finish getting dressed and we can leave.”

Suddenly, she stilled. Trey saw the back of her neck flush a faint red. She turned slowly to face him, her eyes wide. “I, I was—uh, I mean I wasn’t—” she stammered. “I apologize for my, er … oh, hell.”

Trey was amused. It had finally dawned on her that she’d been in a state of near nudity when he’d come into the room. He’d wondered when it would hit her. He smiled slowly, sending her a teasing look, and took his time before replying to her garbled remarks.

“Don’t apologize, Mari,” he drawled. “Believe me, the last few minutes aren’t something that I’ll ever regret.” Rocking back on his heels, he crossed his arms and regarded her thoughtfully. “In fact,” he declared judiciously, “I’d go so far as to say that you’ve managed to pack more excitement into the past ten minutes than I’ll find at that dance all night.”